DER;Q1 - A Compile Heart's Better JRPG
This review will contain spoilers. You have been warned.
Please note that I had completed the PlayStation 4 version of the game, which took around 41 hours to complete.
Death End re;Quest 1 is a horror turn-based JRPG developed by Compile Heart and published by Idea Factory, co-written by Makoto Kedoin, the author of Corpse Party.
You follow Shina Ninomiya through her perspective in the thought-to-be-defuct World's Odyssey, a game developed in the Alice engine that allowed for more realistic and powerful artificial intelligence with non-playable characters in virtual reality. She is then discovered by co-worker and lead programmer for World's Odyssey, Arata Mizunashi, who shares that not only has she been missing for over a year in the real world, but that her memories had been locked away. It is then discovered that as the Entoma Queens (the game's bosses) are defeated, she seemingly regains a bit of her lost memories.
As the game progresses, you meet the soon-to-be party members (in order of appearance) Lily Hopes, Al Astra, Clea Glaive, Lucil Filarete and Celica Clayton, all with different combat styles, interactions and backstories. Arata Mizunashi takes the role as Mr. Enigma, the game's bear mascot, controlled outside the game world, and manipulates World's Odyssey, either by changing the game genre mid-combat, or through progression of the game via the Go To Reality mechanic (if you're stuck, that may mean you have to do that!)
In combat, having various battle commands -- also known as Flash Skills -- you can use different combinations to unlock more Flash Skills; however, note that you have to be a certain level before you can unlock some of them that are listed in user game guides, otherwise no matter how many times you try the combination it will not unlock. You can use up to three commands per turn, this including items such HP and SP potions.
During combat, something you may notice on the floor in them is some weird circle-like objects -- those are what's known as bugs, and they have various effects attached to them. As you remove them from the field, the level of corruption in combat will lower, allowing Arata Mizunashi to change the landscape of battle and apply different effects. They can also be a double-edged sword, however.
Each playable party member in Death End has what's called Buggies, which when you receive damage or step on the aforementioned floor bugs, increments their corruption level. Once the threshold of corruption reaches 80% for a particular character, they will transform into a Glitch Mode, which is a transformation that increases all stats (except for health and skill points) significantly, and you can execute an ultimate skill that can be very devastating and has an effect tied to it (healing the entire party for example). However, this can be a double-edged sword. If the level of corruption reaches 100% that character will be instantly KO'd, and executing the ultimate skill will undo the transformation and revert their corruption level to 0%. If neither condition is met, 10% of corruption is lost each turn while in glitch mode, and the latter condition will occur if the corruption goes under 80%.
Finally, the only way to bring back field bugs is to utilize Arata Mizunashi's ability in combat, which will reset the field corruption back to 100%. Be careful if there are any characters standing where the field bugs are, as when it reaches their turn, they will be affected by them. Unless enemies are knocked-back into the bugs, they are completely unaffected by them and can walk over them.
Death End re;Quest features numerous Death Ends, the bad endings in the game. There is one normal ending and one true / good ending. You can get the normal ending much sooner than the true ending depending on a dialog choice late-game with character Ripuka in a non-camp scenario. Note that to get the true ending, you must complete all side-quests. If you do not, one of the dialog choices with Ripuka is absent.
Death End re;Quest 1 is one of Compile Heart's better JRPGs in my opinion. There's more to do during combat compared to their flagship Hyperdimension Neptunia titles, and it feels more rewarding as a result. This is not to say that the two do not share DNA, however.
Personal recommendation: get the characters to around level 120 before taking on the final boss. The boss has three stages, and the final stage having an instant-death ability. You will want to utilize invincibility skills and make sure to have Shina be in the main party and back her up, as she's the only one who can put a real dent in the final boss's health points.
If you're looking for a horror JRPG and looking for one that's story rich, Death End 1 may just be the game to check out. Note that the majority of the story is done through visual novel sections and rarely in-game cut-scenes, so if you're not a fan of visual novels that's going to have an impact on your experience with the game. There are some instances during visual novel sections where you cannot save your progress (and thankfully if you initiate a Death End it will not allow you to!) Compared to Compile Heart's other games, there's not the level of fan-service present as well.
This is one of my favorite JRPGs and I can 100% recommend it.
Thank you for reading. Peace.